The United States reported over 35,000 coronavirus infections on Monday, the lowest single-day increase since June, a Breitbart News analysis of Johns Hopkins University data revealed.
America marked a significant drop in the number of new daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths on Monday, the same day Democrats repudiated President Donald Trump’s response to the virus during the 2020 virtual Democrat National Convention (DNC).
All of those critical metrics are pointing in the right direction as the New York Times, citing over a dozen scientists, reported that the United States might achieve “herd immunity” sooner than expected.
“Herd immunity” occurs when enough people in a region contract the virus — through a vaccine or by surviving an infection — to nearly eliminate transmission. Researchers reportedly lowered the infection threshold to 50 percent or less, down from up to 70 percent.
As Breitbart News reported on Friday, the number of weekly new infections, fatalities, and hospital visits fell last week, compared to the previous seven days.
So far, the downward trend in infections and hospitalizations continues. It remains unclear whether Monday’s drop in deaths reported daily — which have plateaued since late July at an average of around 1,000 — will hold.
Nevertheless, new daily infections, hospitalizations, and deaths remain below peak levels.
Limited reporting over the weekend tends to bring the coronavirus data down early in the week, compared to other days. However, new daily deaths and hospitalizations were lower than any other Monday for at least a month, according to data from the university and the COVID Tracking Project:
The rise in daily infections was lower than any other Monday since June 22, Johns Hopkins revealed. New COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) infections reported Monday were lower than any day since June 24, it added.
Analysts present rates as seven-day rolling averages to account for daily fluctuations in the data.
Average new daily infections are reportedly either trending down (25 states and D.C.) or remain relatively flat (10) in the vast majority of the country this week, compared to the previous seven days.
Monday’s new case drop came amid a decline in the average count of infections that began around the last week of July. The U.S. has reported an average of over 50,000 cases over the previous seven days, down from a peak last month.
New daily hospitalizations dropped to 43,485 on Monday after 12 consecutive days of decline, data provided by the COVID Tracking Project showed. On Monday, new daily hospital visits were at their lowest since early June.
There were also 445 deaths reported Monday, the lowest number in about a couple of weeks — since August 2, according to Johns Hopkins.
“Cases are falling, and we know that’s true. We have plenty enough testing to know that,” Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), acknowledged Tuesday in an interview with ABC News.
He noted that new cases have decreased by over 20 percent since the third week of July.
“We know that’s a real number because hospitalizations have also gone down 24 percent, so those things track,” Dr. Giroir, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, added.
The July 16 peak count of new daily cases at over 77,000 is more than double the infections reported Monday, Johns Hopkins data pointed out.
Daily deaths dropped by over 80 percent from the highest single-day count on April 17, it added.
New hospitalizations dropped by nearly 30 percent from a single-day peak on July 24 around the time that new infections reached their second and highest crest, the tracking project showed.
There is a patchwork of guidelines for reporting COVID-19 data across the United States, with some analysts reporting probable fatalities and infections while others do not, resulting in different counts.
The COVID Tracking Project placed the single-day count on Monday at nearly 38,000, higher than the university’s tally. However, its death toll stood at 407, lower than Johns Hopkins’ count:
Johns Hopkins’ cumulative number of cases and deaths for the United States is higher than the count by the tracking project.
The university relies on the COVID Tracking Project for some of its data, including testing.
After a drop that began in late July, the average number of new daily tests in the United States has been on the rise in recent days. The U.S. has recorded an average of 763,000 new tests daily over the last seven days, the project reported.
Testing positivity rates are either dropping or remain steady in most of the country, data from the tracking project showed:
The U.S. has reported a positivity rate of about seven percent over the last week.
Dr. Giroir said the U.S. would ramp up testing to nearly 90 million in September. As of Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. had recorded about 5.5 million infections and over 170,000 deaths. America leads the developed world in recoveries and testing, according to Worldometer.
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